New York!

I guess I'm technically no longer the medschoolprisoner. I had numerous ppl ask me what I was gonna do....change it to hospitalprisoner?? Nah I'm now an ex-medschoolprisoner .  So I've been in New York for one week now.  It's definitely a huge difference from Houston.  Although, living in Long Island on the border of Queens it's not too bad. It still has the suburb feeling but a lot smaller and a tons of more people and cars!  Plus Flushing is just 10mins away....yummy Chinese food :)  The weather is gorgeous almost no humidity and it only gets up to 75F on average!  David and I did the 26 hour drive up last week. We each drove up in our cars packed to the max with our belongings...so much was left behind in Houston :(  Oh well new wardrobe and all brand new furniture!!! I'm excited. I bought my first sofa yesterday!! It has 9 pillows and soo comfy~!!  So come visit me!  You have a brand new comfy sofa to sleep on or you can sleep with me on my brand new pillow-top full size bed  hehe. No more twin sized mattress!

So what have I done so far...visited Jones Beach...soo much prettier compared to Galveston hehe, went into the city 3 times already, visited IKEA twice and did some exploring.  This weekend was crazy. I didn't get home til 3am on both Friday and last night. We went to some bars near 5th ave and last night had some great sushi!!! Met up with some wash U peeps, Clear Lakers, and New Yorkers from my residency. It's gonna be exciting.  I start up tomorrow...first day of wards and then my first 24 hour call on Wednesday!! I'm so not ready and it sort of feels surreal...almost like it can't be true that I'm now a first year resident and has full responsibility for my patients... NOWAY!  But cool thing is I got my own prescription pad and stamp with my name and all!! hehe fun stuff   Well, come visit NY if you can!!! Wish me luck tomorrow.

China

The "visa run" -  7 days in China.  We first landed in Nanjing and then from there visited multiple cities on the way to Shanghai.  It was quite an experience and it definitely changed my view of China.  I had always imagined in my head that China was a 3rd world country...yea I was wrong!  There were skyscrapers everywhere!  Lots of bicycles everywhere but quite a few nice cars too!  I went with a tour group of 22 people with my grandma.  Great time bonding with my grandma and practicing my broken Taiwanese!  Man did I get laughed at a lot when I tried to speak in Taiwanese...but whatever at least I tried.  I also got to freshen up on my Chinese history and hmmm I dunno if I like any of the leaders. I heard the good and bad side of all of them.  There's this guy in our group that's a history professor and supposedly he has some ancient manuals that one of his collegues brought back from China way back then and he has some info about Mao that isn't illustrated in the museums......

Anways, so I realized two things about myself - I absolutely hate rude people and being woken up by someone pushing me.  Why not the gentle nudge!  Isn't it better to be woken up softenly instead.  Oh and the rudeness....ugh it puts me a bad mood.  Other than that there were some similarities I saw in China that I also experienced in India.  First the shoving, no personal space, packed buses, the littering, and the squatting to use the restrooms.  I'm an expert at that now!! hehe except I don't know how to do number 2 while squatting....i don't think I'll ever manage that! hehe.

So 4 more days overseas and I'll be back in the U.S.!  Wow I can't believe it's already been 5 weeks! I'm gonna miss the food! I eat soo much!  So I had a dream last night that I was HUGE!!! hehe...hopefully not true but quite disturbing at the same time ;)

Toilets

It's amazing here in Taiwan!  They do so much to try to conserve the water.  For example, this weekend I went to the movie theaters and their restrooms have two separate flushes. One for number 1 and there's a bigger flush for number 2.  Soooo if you go number 1 a smaller quantity of water is used to flush the toilet bowl.  I still go for the "western" toilet!  How do pregnant and elders crouch down?! Oh it's also really surprising how much these people here obey the rules.  Maybe it's cuz I'm comparing India to Taiwan but it's sooo different!  There is absolutely no Littering allowed.  To chew gum on the MRT (monorail) is even prohibited.  There are trash cans everywhere and people really don't litter.  There are these lines drawn on the ground for the people to line up against while waiting for the MRT and everyone is in a single file line~!  No cutting and no shoving. It's amazing I tell ya! 

So this week is Outpatient peds. Kinda cool cuz I get to work up all the new patients and do a history and physical in Chinese...or half Chinese and half sign languaging with body motions...hehe reminds me of being in Ob/Gyn back in San Antonio with all the Spanish speaking patients. Aww the kids are soo cute...even when they're sick!

National Palace Museum

yay I found some other exchange students here! I realized that it's totally different if you come to Taiwan alone without your family.  I get so bored! hehe.  All my cousins here are either at school or now married. What's interesting is the exchange students here were all born in Taiwan!  Only 2 of them besides myself are ABC (american born chinese).  But that's ok we're all 4th year medical students and lazy! hehe. So now my lunch breaks are 2 hours long!  Most of the exchange students here are from California. A huge chunk of them are from UC Davis. Then there's one from Las Vegas, 3 from Michigan, 1 from Baltimore, and 1 from Texas! gotta represent! hehe. But oh so I invited Chris Huang to come out the other day and he wore the HUGE and I mean HUGE UT belt buckle! haha so now the exchange students all think we Texans wear that! hehe. Yesterday I went to visit the National Palace Museum.  It had all the ivory, porcelain, art, paintings, chariots, jade, and other stuff that the nationalists took with them from China when they fled to Taiwan way back when.  So the coolest piece was a piece of jade they had created that looked like a piece of meat! I looked so real that it made us hungry! hehe and then there was a piece of jade made into bok-choy.  So pretty! I noticed that everything here evolves around FOOD! 

This week has been fun :) even in the general peds wards. I like my resident! He actually wants to teach me!  Oh and it's funny I found out why I didn't see any medical students on my last rotation (last week) in the PICU. The medical students hide out in the classrooms and sleep or study.  They still show up cuz we have conferences everday at 8am and then they come out to round with us sometimes.  So I've seen some crazy things these past couple of days!  Just to list a few - pancreatic blastoma, teratoma, neurofibromatosis type 1, cerebral palsy, nephrotic syndrome due to Hepatitis B, parotitis, Neimann Pick disease, succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase deficiency, progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis, retropharyngeal abscess, right atrium isomerism complex, and Langerhan's cell histiocytosis!   

Alright time for some Wii! My uncle got a wii from Japan since they aren't out yet here in Taiwan. oh and the best part is it has a chip so he can download/burn any games for free instead of paying an arm and leg for one! ($50/game)

~Taiwan~

I'm in Taipei, Taiwan for the next 5 weeks.  4 weeks at Tai Da (Taiwan National University) at their hospital doing a pediatrics rotation.  Then one week in China!  I've never visited China before...so it should be interesting.  Currently I'm on my second week of my peds rotation here in Taiwan.  The first week was kinda slow but looking back it went by pretty fast!  I did PICU (pediatrics intensive care unit) last week and they do so many procedures!  They did a cardiac catherization at the bedside, multiple central line placements, blood draws, echocardiograms (like 10 each day) and bone marrow aspirations - all at the bedside!  One weird thing I noticed was the doctors talk on their cell phones nonstop!  For example, in the middle of trying to obtain an IV line in a 2 yr old girl the doctor's cell went off.  Nonchalantly, he leaves the needle in the girl's arm and answers his cell....talks for a bit...finishes his conversation and resumes with the needle still embedded in the girl's arm!  Crazy! Oh and they don't wear gloves at all!  They get blood all over their hands/nails....ohhh my. They have cool stuff though!  So I saw Holt Oram syndrome, HUS due to pneumococcus instead of the typical E. coli.  Apparently, most of their HUS are due to pneumococcus.  There was a case of centronuclear myopathy, myocarditis,  two Down's syndrome, acute lymphocytic leukemia, two DiGeorge's syndrome, and multiple congenital heart conditions (patent asd, vsd, pda, etc.) The kids are soooo cute!  Since I'm still a medical student all I can do is observe.  The first couple of days were boring until I started playing with the kids. They are sooo adorable!  I love it when they speak mandarin/ taiwanese!!! So cute!! 

Oh! So I randomly facebooked Chris Huang and well he's in Taiwan too. Then he told me that Johnathan and Annie were also in town! So I surprised Johnathan and Annie on Friday after leaving work a bit earlier than usual....noon time :) hehe. Whatever, I'm never accounted for there and all I do is walk around aimlessly hehe. We went to Sogo, 101, and Shilin night market. Sooo many ppl!

Over the weekend one of my cousins came back from college to visit for the weekend and we went to Dan Shui.  It's like this port with lots of yummy food!  The one thing I always get when I go is the one foot high ice cream on a cone!  We also had some bird's eggs, fish balls, and other random taiwanese food that only exists overseas! hehe. Sunday I went to a park with my grandma and then a rose park with one of my uncles.  Later, I got to see my other cousin and his wife. She has the exact same chinese name as me!  So when ppl call our names we both answer.  Then off to the night market again! This time it was oyster pancakes, fried oysters, soup and noodles with oyster....kinda like the oyster bake in San Antonio during Feista!

Now I'm on the general wards for Peds. First day today and I really like it!  I just hope I can say that as the week goes by! Soooo thinking about perming my hair this week..what do you think?